PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2019. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. date: 15 September 2019

Vanguard of the Imam

Vanguard of the Imam

Chapter:

(p.39)
3 Vanguard of the Imam

Source:

Vanguard of the Imam

Author(s):

Afshon Ostovar

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387892.003.0003

This chapter covers the emergence of the IRGC and its role in monopolization of pro-Khomeini clerical power after Iran’s 1979 revolution. During this period, the IRGC was a fledgling organization that had been established to unify disparate militant groups loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini. Its pro-Khomeini activism brought the IRGC into conflict with competing revolutionary groups and anyone that did not adequately adhere to Khomeini’s authority. The IRGC’s politics were rooted in the revolutionary and reactionary ideologies of its founders, many of whom had once been members of the Islamist-Marxist Mojahedin-e Khalq and had become vehement enemies of that organization. The IRGC led the campaign against Khomeini’s revolutionary opponents, violently crushing the leftist and Marxist opposition. The IRGC’s political ground war paved the way for Khomeini’s greatest victory: the ratification of the Islamic constitution which cemented the concept of clerical rule (velayat-e faqih) as the foundation of Iran’s revolutionary system (nezam).

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2019. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. date: 15 September 2019